Campus News & Events

On Sept. 1, Wesleyan President Michael Roth '78 appointed Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, to the position of Special Advisor to the President. As she prepares to retire from Wesleyan, Basinger will work closely with President Roth on matters relating to Wesleyan Film--cultivating partnerships with organizations like the American Film Institute; conducting master classes and workshops; and supporting fundraising for the expansion of the Center for Film Studies. Though Basinger is stepping away from full-time teaching, she will continue her service to the Ogden and Mary Louise Reid Cinema Archives and offer support to Scott Higgins, the Charles…

In 1870, Orange Judd bequeathed Wesleyan $100,000 to build Judd Hall, which was designed as a building for the study of natural sciences. Included with this building was the Wesleyan Museum, which housed a prominent natural history collection containing over 300,000 specimens. In 1957, the museum was closed and specimens were donated to other museums, put into storage in various places on campus, or "temporarily" loaned to local schools. In 1970, before the current museum reopened in Exley, the collection stored in the tunnels under Foss Hill was found to have been severely vandalized, with many specimens lost, stolen, or…

This fall, Wesleyan welcomes 71 new faculty, including 15 tenure-track faculty, 10 professors of the practice, 1 adjunct, and 45 new visiting faculty. "Academic Affairs, in conjunction with a number of departments and centers, ran successful searches for a number of new professor of the practice positions this year in order to expand the curriculum in particular areas such as writing, education studies, physics, and others, where these faculty could be of great value," explained Joyce Jacobsen, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. Bios of the new ongoing and full-time visiting faculty are below: Anthropology Joseph Weiss, assistant…

Wesleyan's Center for the Arts announces the highlights of the 2018–2019 season, including two world, two New England, and four Connecticut premieres. "This season we are taking a cue from CONTRA-TIEMPO, whose new work 'joyUS justUS' posits that the expression of joy is the greatest act of resistance,” said Sarah Curran, director of the Center for the Arts. "During the 2018–2019 season, we claim joy and expressive freedom, through which we represent, create, and expand our community. We are particularly excited about presenting the first solo exhibition in New England by up-and-coming multimedia artist Kahlil Robert Irving, including a number…

David Kuenzel, assistant professor of economics, is the coauthor of a new paper published in the September 2018 Journal of Macroeconomics titled, “Constitutional Rules as Determinants of Social Infrastructure." In the paper, Kuenzel and his coauthors, Theo Eicher from the University of Washington and Cecilia García-Peñalosa from Aix-Marseille University, investigate the link between constitutional rules and economic institutions, which are a key driver of economic development and economic growth. Kuenzel and his coauthors find that the determinants of economic institutions (or social infrastructure) are much more fundamental than previously thought. In addition to constitutional rules that constrain the executive, highly detailed…

Peter Gottschalk, professor of religion, and history major Gabriel Greenberg ’04 are the coauthors of Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Sentiment: Picturing the Enemy, Second Edition, published in July 2018 by Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. The duo released Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy in August 2007. Islamophobia explores anxieties surrounding anti-Muslim sentiments through political cartoons and film. After providing a background on Islamic traditions and their history with America, it graphically shows how political cartoons and films reveal a casual demeaning and demonizing of Muslims and Islam from both sides of the political aisle. Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Sentiment offers both insights into American culture’s…

Associate Professor of Economics Abigail Hornstein, together with Minyuan Zhao of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, has coauthored an article on corporate philanthropy published in the Aug. 1 issue of Strategic Management Journal. Corporate philanthropy has long been recognized as an important part of multinational strategy, but little is known about how it is allocated across different countries. Using data from a sample of more than 200 U.S.-based corporate foundations from 1993 to 2008, Hornstein and Zhao examined how foundation giving is associated with the funding firm’s need to navigate the local business environments. They found that foundations give more…

On Aug. 29, in temperatures hovering around 90 degrees, 810 new students from the Class of 2022 moved into their new residence halls on New Student Arrival Day. Wesleyan received a record-breaking 12,788 applications for a spot in the Class of 2022, of which 2,219 were admitted. Of those, 810 matriculated and another 44 students transferred into Wesleyan. After settling into their home-away-from-home and saying farewell to their families, the new students participated in an array of New Student Orientation social activities involving group sessions with orientation leaders, academic forums, autobiographical monologues written and presented by current students, a neon space party,…

Throughout high school, Naranchimeg Altai of Mongolia favored the subjects of math and physics and had dreams of becoming an engineer. “I was a science person,” she said. “But then I started doing some research on schools and discovered liberal arts … and Wesleyan seemed to be a good fit. I wanted a large community with small classes and many options. I like physics, but I also like English and education.” Altai applied, was accepted, and on Aug. 26, she took her first steps on American soil. She joins 116 other new international students at Wesleyan who come from locations…

Members of Wesleyan's Gamelan Ensemble participated in the 2018 International Gamelan Festival in Solo, Java, Indonesia, Aug. 9–16. The annual festival is sponsored by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture and the Provincial Government of Solo and features various programs honoring gamelan—not only for music but also as historical and cultural artifacts. During the conference, Sumarsam, the Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music, delivered a keynote address titled “From Texts to Mantra: Imparting Meaning to Javanese Wayang Puppet Play.” He also led a discussion about his new book, written in Indonesian, titled Imparting Meaning to Wayang Puppet Play and Gamelan: Java-Islam-Global Intersection. Artist-in-Residence I.M.…

Wesleyan earth and environmental sciences major Eduardo Centeno ’19 was honored for presenting the "best undergraduate talk" at the 6th Polar Marine Diatom Workshop (PMDW), held Aug. 6–10 at Iowa State University. The honor also earned him a featured appearance on Iowa Public Radio. Centeno, a McNair Scholar, discussed his research titled "Environmental Interpretation of the mid-Pliocene at Site 697." For this study, Centeno examined the diatoms (fossils of algae) off of the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula using a marine sediment core drilled at a location known as Site 697. "Diatoms are really important microscopic plants that have been estimated to…

Kyungmi Kim, assistant professor of psychology, is the coauthor of a paper published in the Psychonomic Bulletin and Review on Aug. 8. Jenne Johnson '18 and Danielle Rothschild '19 also contributed to the article. The paper is titled "Merely presenting one’s own name along with target items is insufficient to produce a memory advantage for the items: A critical role of relational processing." Many studies have shown that information processed in relation to our “self” vs. someone else has an advantage in memory, termed the self-reference effect (SRE). Early studies of the SRE used tasks in which participants made explicit…

Basinger Appointed Special Advisor to the President

Wesleyan’s Natural History Collection and Curiosities Featured in Usdan

Wesleyan Welcomes 71 New Faculty in 2018-19

Center for the Arts 2018–2019 Events Feature Urban Latin Dance, Court Dancers and Musicians of Yogyakarta

Kuenzel Coauthors Paper in the Journal of Macroeconomics

Gottschalk, Greenberg ’04 Release Second Edition of Islamophobia

Hornstein Coauthors Article on Corporate Philanthropy Strategy

Wesleyan Welcomes 810 Students to the Class of 2022

International Students Hail from 37 Countries

Wesleyan Gamelan Ensemble Participates in Indonesian Festival

Centeno ’19 Honored in Iowa for Undergraduate Environmental Research

Kim, Johnson ’18, Rothschild ’19, Coauthor Study on Self-Related Memory Advantage